1) A quick thread on the debt of gratitude that liberalism -- by which I mean society governed by universal rights, political equality, and the rule of law -- owes to LGBT rights litigators.

2) The Supreme Court's very first gay rights decision -- or, at least, the first case where gay rights prevailed -- was Romer v. Evans (1996). It involved a Colorado state constitutional amendment forbidding any state or municipal law providing for LGB equality.

3) Romer was the mildest civil rights opinion imaginable. It's holding was that states may not enact laws motivated solely by "animus toward the class it affects."

If the sole purpose of a law is hate, the law is struck down. If the law serves any other purpose. no problem.

4) Several years later, the Supreme Court built upon Romer in Lawrence v. Texas (2003). Lawrence struck down a Texas ban on "sodomy." But it also contained an extraordinarily important line.

5) The line was "the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice."

6) So Lawrence held that a state cannot command individuals to act in a certain way, or not to act in a certain way, because the state views those actions as "immoral."

Basically, this means that the government cannot command you do do something "because I say so."

7) This may seem like basic stuff. Government can't root laws solely in hate. It can't root laws solely in vague appeals to morality. It must claim that laws will provide some concrete benefit to society.

But these two holdings ENRAGED Scalia. Here was his response to Lawrence:

8) That's a long excerpt, so let me sum it up. Scalia was outraged by the idea that lawmakers couldn't simply say "X is immoral" and ban X. Lawmakers did this all the time.

And once lawmakers can't ban "immoral activity," we're on a slippery slope that ends in legal sex toys!

9) But here's the thing. Let's say you want to build a white supremacist society.

The Constitution won't let you pass a law with the clear purpose of lifting up whites at the expense of people of color, because of the 14th Amendment.

10) Or lets say that you want to build a theocracy.

The Constitution won't let you pass a law with the clear purpose of imposing Christianity on nonbelievers, because of the First Amendment's and Establishment Clause.

11) But, before Romer & Lawrence, there was a backhanded way around these limits. Lawmakers could say "we're not banning gay sex because this is a theocracy, we're banning it because it's immoral."

12) "We're not banning gay people from serving in government because of religion. We're doing it because of animus."

"We're not regulating your whole sex life because you have to live you life according to my faith. We're doing it because your sex life is immoral."

13) When I watched this speech from Sen. Josh Hawley, the closest thing to a Commander from the Handmaid's Tale, I couldn't figure out why he was so damn angry at the Court for handing down an LGBTQ rights decision. But I now think he's channeling Scalia.

14) Scalia understood something that I don't think many people -- including Justice Kennedy, the author of Lawrence --understood at the time. When you tell the government that it can't ground our laws in a few people's concepts of what is moral, that has profound implications.

15) Illiberalism depends on the government's ability to say "because I say so." Theocracy depends on the government's ability to say "because I say so."

"Liberalism" is a frightfully hard word to define, but a pretty good start is that laws cannot be mere acts of will.

16) Decisions like Romer and Lawrence do not prevent lawmakers from imposing religious values on the nation. Nor should they. "Thou shalt not kill" is a very good rule.

But they do require law to be grounded in more than a mere desire to maintain a social hierarchy.

17) And I guess that, if my goal in life was to use the law to impose such a hierarchy, I'd be pretty enraged by the Court's LGBTQ rights decisions as too.